Interest in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) has been increasing among professionals in Japan, and various books about it have been translated into Japanese. However, it is difficult to understand how to teach MBCT by just reading books. In the first half of this article, training at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre was shown. Especially, the content of a Six-Day Training Retreat was detailed. In the second half, teachings from Dr. Mark Williams at the Mindfulness Forum 2016 were presented, focusing on the inquiry and embodiment of mindfulness. Even though the importance of these two points are stressed by the developers of MBCT (Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2012), it may be difficult to understand for those who have never had the opportunity for observation. The majority of participants at the Forum could directly observe and learn from Dr. Mark Williams.

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In this article, the authors briefly illustrated some researches on mindfulness in the area of cancer and palliative care that are underway in Keio University. These include a randomized controlled trial of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in breast cancer patients, and a mindfulness-based intervention for health professionals, which is an adaptation of GRACE program, developed by Joan Halifax.

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Attention paid to mindfulness has rapidly increased recently. Although the number of clinical research has increased abroad, few relevant studies has been conducted in Japan. We introduce our challenges of MBCT (Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy) for anxiety and well-being. We also discussed about four issues when implementing MBCT.

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While the importance of the hospice/palliative care became greater in our life, professional palliative caregivers may experience occupational stress and burnout, which negatively impact their quality of life and job performance. In the present study, we intended to examine the effect of the Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for professional palliative caregivers on the stress reduction and the improvement of their nature as the professionals. Fourteen professionals (including doctors, nurses, psychologists, and medical social workers, Mean Age=43.64, SD=8.30, women=11) participated in the MBCT program. The MBCT program designed by Segal, Williams, and Teasdale (2002) for recurrent depression was partly modified and used for the present study. Participants completed Maslach Burnout Inventory, Stress Response Scale for Nurse, Emotional Labour Inventory for Nurse, stress, burnout, Frommelt Attitude Toward Care Of Dying scale, Items about a view of life and death, Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, Self-Compassion Scale, Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II at one month before the program starts (Baseline), Pre- and Post-test, and one month and six months follow-up. The results showed that MBCT reduced the physical exhaustion, increased some mindfulness skills at one month follow-up, and deepened some attitude to the death or palliative care at six months follow-up. MBCT may be an effective intervention for addressing the stress reduction and the improvement of the professional awareness in palliative care.

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Limited research has been conducted at psychiatric hospitals in Japan on group therapy that employs mindfulness. In this study, a group therapy program that employed mindfulness-based cognitive therapy was developed and implemented at Psychiatric Hospital A. Patients who consulted at the outpatient clinic were targeted. The program included eight weekly two-hour sessions and a follow-up session. Given the study’s location, exclusion criteria were relaxed, and patients with a wide variety of complaints participated in the program. Seven courses of the program were conducted in which a total of 31 patients participated. Their diagnoses included depression, anxiety disorder, bromyalgia, and schizophrenia. The majority of participants were also undergoing diagnosis of multiple mental illness complications. A comparison of the results of the questionnaire scale before and after the program showed an improvement in mindfulness, depression and quality of life. Furthermore, the needs and problems of mindfulness in psychiatric clinical practice obtained from participants’ impressions, and aspects of practice in psychiatric hospitals were examined. It is expected that the findings of the study will result in further expansion of the practice of mindfulness.

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This pilot study investigated quantitative and qualitative parameters to evaluate whether complementary alternative medicine, including the use of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is feasibly safe and effective for the management of refractory chronic pain. We studied 5 patients who received a course of 8 weekly sessions (2 hours per session) of a modified MBCT program for chronic pain management. No adverse events or dropouts (which serve as primary endpoints) were reported suggesting that MBCT was a safe therapeutic option. In terms of the secondary endpoint, a statistically significant improvement was observed using the numerical rating scale (NRS) showing pain intensity assessed in terms of an 11-step evaluation (scale ranging between 0 and 10), as well as the pain disability assessment scale (PDAS), which evaluates the correlation between pain and the activities of daily living. The 4 patients we studied (1 patient did not achieve secondary outcomes but only received MBCT until the end of the study) showed a significant improvement when assessed using the NRS compared with the 13 patients who did not receive MBCT. Notably, one patient described completing a significant volume of homework and exercises and consequently reported a remarkable improvement. The importance of breath awareness has been particularly and repeatedly described in this context.

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